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"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner

Last week I was a guest on the Sinica Podcast to discuss investigative journalism in China, specifically Wang Keqin ???, and the issues around perceived and real Western media bias about China. From the “blurb”:

Is the “Western media” biased in its reporting about China? What are the frames and narratives that inform the Anglophone media’s understanding of the county, and what are the misunderstandings about the “Western media” that lead Chinese people into believing Western reporting is more biased than it is?

This week, Tania Branigan from the Guardian, Jeremy Goldkorn from Danwei and serial China entrepreneur Bill Bishop join host Kaiser Kuo in a discussion of this perennial topic. And lest you mistakenly believe that it’s only the Western media writing critical stories on China, we discuss the state of investigative reporting in China, focusing on a recent piece by Tania in The Guardian about China’s best-known investigative journalist, Wang Keqin.

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I’ve been fighting this one in the UK since 2000 when the government and media tried to blame the UK Chinese community for the outbreak of the devastating Foot & Mouth Disease outbreak which the government had messed up. Although this was clearly absurd the media, the liberal Guardian prominent among them, persisted with this falsehood even though it was heading for a Chinese pogrom. This normally placid community held a shut-down of Chinatown and a lively protest at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food until Minister Nick Brown apologised and vindicated us in public. I was in contact with the late Hugo Young of The Guardian, who was appalled: I hear he had words at the highest level at his own newspaper and said this should never happen again.

Unfortunately, just as the world was about to learn about the rich nations’ duplicity at the Copenhagen climate change summit last year, the media did it again and scapegoated China. I was banned from the Guardian CiF for trying to argue the case and put relevant information in the public domain to cool the three-minute hate being whipped up. (FYI, there’s more about it at my blog: http://madammiaow.blogspot.com/2009/12/sinophobia-and-copenhagen-open-letter.html)

Same with the execution of the British drug smuggler (to which I was opposed) when the media all but ignored the Blackwater operatives who were being let off in America having massacred 17 Iraqi civilians.

And so on. This isn’t about China being perfect. It isn’t. Valid criticism is welcome and necessary if we are to understand the next world superpower. But I can’t stand the hypocrisy and the colonialist attitudes still prevalent.

I've been fighting this one in the UK since 2000 when the government and media tried to blame the UK Chinese community for the outbreak of the devastating Foot & Mouth Disease outbreak which the government had messed up. Although this was clearly absurd the media, the liberal Guardian prominent among them, persisted with this falsehood even though it was heading for a Chinese pogrom. This normally placid community held a shut-down of Chinatown and a lively protest at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food until Minister Nick Brown apologised and vindicated us in public. I was in contact with the late Hugo Young of The Guardian, who was appalled: I hear he had words at the highest level at his own newspaper and said this should never happen again.

Unfortunately, just as the world was about to learn about the rich nations' duplicity at the Copenhagen climate change summit last year, the media did it again and scapegoated China. I was banned from the Guardian CiF for trying to argue the case and put relevant information in the public domain to cool the three-minute hate being whipped up. (FYI, there's more about it at my blog: http://madammiaow.blogspot.com/2009/12/sinophob…)

Same with the execution of the British drug smuggler (to which I was opposed) when the media all but ignored the Blackwater operatives who were being let off in America having massacred 17 Iraqi civilians.

And so on. This isn't about China being perfect. It isn't. Valid criticism is welcome and necessary if we are to understand the next world superpower. But I can't stand the hypocrisy and the colonialist attitudes still prevalent.